Last Monday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke privately with former President Bill Clinton in Phoenix, inviting just the kind of political controversy that she has vowed to avoid. Lynch, who will ultimately determine whether to indict Hillary Clinton on federal charges, has now blurred the line between politics and justice in a way that can never be put straight again.

According to Lynch, the meeting was purely social.

“There was no discussion of Benghazi,” she said Tuesday. “No discussion of the State Department emails.”

That’s hard to believe, but the truth of Lynch’s claim hardly matters. Even a social visit of half an hour – outside the light of public view – is enough to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of an already-skeptical American public. If Lynch had broken bread with Ivanka Trump for half an hour on that airport tarmac, you can only imagine the howls of indignation we’d be hearing from the Clinton camp.

As a result of the meeting, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise is calling on Lynch to recuse herself from the ongoing investigation into Hillary’s use of a private email server.

“The secret meeting between the Attorney General and Bill Clinton shows an astounding lack of judgment by Loretta Lynch,” Scalise said in a statement. “Given the culture of unaccountability in the Obama Administration, it is unlikely that Attorney General Lynch will heed the growing calls for her resignation. But at a minimum, Lynch should immediately recuse herself from the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s unlawful activities and appoint a special prosecutor to handle the case.”

Due to the obvious political pressures surrounding this case, Lynch should have done that from the start. How can the public possibly trust that Obama’s top legal beagle will be fair and impartial when it comes to prosecuting the woman who holds the fate of his legacy in her hands? The Clinton meeting is just icing on the cake.

Lynch did not recuse herself from the case, but she did promise to go along with whatever recommendations given to her by FBI prosecutors. Insiders believe those recommendations could land in her lap by the end of the summer.

Of course, when you have an intersection of the two most dishonest administrations in modern history, promises don’t count for much.